by Raina James
Jack took his drink from the barista and sat at the closest empty table —conveniently, right beside the intrepid shoppers. A petite brunette caught his eye and smiled. Busted. Flushing, Jack shifted his attention to the people on the crowded sidewalk just outside the front window. He didn't see the girl nudge one of her friends, or the interested looks they both gave him.
Sucking the chocolatey slivers of ice through his straw, Jack let the cool air conditioning wash over him. He wasn't used to Florida's humidity. It might be spring back home, but the weather was still generally cool and rainy. A black T-shirt and jeans, his standard uniform, hadn't seemed such a bad idea when he'd dressed this morning. Maybe when he got back to his room, he'd dig up the shorts and light cotton short-sleeved shirt his mom had "suggested" he pack.
The reminder made him frown. Not about his mom, triple-checking everything he and Katie had packed. That was just Mom being Mom. No, what bothered him was the scene outside their house, followed up by what had happened when they'd left his grandparents' place to head to the airport. What a total zoo. His mother had refused to let them go out the front door, insisting they get into the car in the garage before hitting the automatic door opener.
There was a decent-sized aquarium in the science lab at school. Everyone took turns feeding the fish. He'd always gotten a kick out of the way the fish had zipped to the top of the tank, gaping mouths breaking the water's surface with little popping burbles whenever a hand appeared overhead. See hand, swarm for food. That's what this felt like, except his mother and sister and him were the food, and the newspeople on the sidewalk were the fish. And they wouldn't be satisfied with a few measly shrimp flakes, either—they were out for blood.
Jack shivered. It had been more than a little unnerving. There he was, still trying to come to grips with the idea that his mother and Riff Logan had had a … a thing together, and he hadn't really considered what it all meant to everyone else, everyone else being anyone who was interested in Riff Logan. Which was pretty much everyone.
At first, it had been kind of exciting. Then irritating. Why hadn't his mother told him about Riff? No—he didn't want to even think about that.
While Jack was freaked by the revelations about Mom and Riff Logan, his mother was freaked in an entirely different way—a seriously pissed kind of way. That much was obvious. What was next? Part of him hoped it would all be over by the time they got home from Florida. Then things could go back to normal and he could forget all about his mother and Riff Logan.
The straw squeaked as he sucked up the last of the latte. Popping off the clear plastic lid, he swirled the last of the slivered ice around the bottom of the cup. Absently, he wondered what was taking Grandpa so long. So much for "one more quick stop." Grandma Elizabeth and Katie would be wondering where they were.
A burst of laughter drew Jack from his thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the pretty blonde at the next table pulled a magazine out of her bag. The other girls lifted their cups off the tiny table to make room for it. The blonde quickly flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for. From their eager expressions, he assumed it was one of those girly "Win a date with," or "Is your boyfriend all that?" magazines his sister always left lying around—until the blonde said, "I know! Can you believe it?"
For some reason, her giddy laugh made him nervous. Suddenly, the air-conditioning felt too cold for comfort. He had a bad feeling about this. Unconsciously, he craned his neck to get a better look at the magazine spread open on the table. One word in the headline jumped out at him: "Riff." Oh, crap.
"Well, I think it's sweet," the little brunette said. "If a guy wrote a song for me, you'd have to pry him out of my cold, dead arms!"
Her friends groaned.
"Uck, Heather! That is totally disgusting! And besides, this 'girl' must be as old as my mother."
"Well, she wasn't then," Heather said. Challenged, she turned a page back to the start of the article and pointed a triumphant finger at one section. "See? It says here she was eighteen. And if Riff Logan's hot now—which he totally is—can you imagine what he was like then? I mean, yum-ee."
She then proceeded to read out the details Jack had been trying to avoid hearing about for the past forty-eight hours.
Oh, man. He really did not want to hear this. Up till just a few days ago, he'd thought Riff Logan was one of the coolest guys around. Not only was he an awesome guitarist—Jack liked to play along with Morven when he practiced his own guitar work—but he also seemed an all-around great guy. He had a rep for dealing straight, for not putting up with crap from anyone and helping out with charities and new musicians and shit like that. And the women! Whole sections of the newsgroups Jack was in were devoted to Riff Logan's ladies. You had to admire a guy who could bring in the babes like that.
But that was B.M., Before Mom. The thought that his mother was one of those women Riff Logan had dated and dumped … and that other guys were reading about her and thinking, "Way to go, man!" and "Chalk another one up for Riff!" and "What a handful, if ya know what I mean" … Jack felt sick.
Sick, and pissed off.
Why hadn't his mother told him about Riff Logan? She could have said, "Oh, by the way, Jack, I used to know Riff." Then he wouldn't have felt like such an asshole when he found out about it at the same time everyone else did.
Jack pushed his empty cup away, his tense stomach roiling queasily. When was his grandfather coming back?
"Look at this!" The brunette's excited voice rose over her friends' chatter. "It says Beautiful Girl, I mean, Serena, has two kids, and the oldest is fifteen. Fifteen," she emphasized. "Do you think he could be Riff's son?"
Jack's jaw dropped. His heart hammered in his chest and he actually felt the blood drain out of his face. The chair legs scraped against the ceramic floor as he pushed away from the table, almost knocking the chair over in his haste to stand up. His sweaty palm slid on the tabletop's smooth surface and hit the cup, sending it crashing to the floor with a hollow rattle. The blonde gasped as a few icy droplets from the bottom of the cup splashed over her bare arms.
"Hey!"
"Sorry," Jack mumbled.
He bent to pick up the cup, ignoring the stares he could feel burning into the back of his head. One of the girls came back to their table and handed the blonde a handful of napkins, which she used to dab away the watery latte. She glared at Jack, but the brunette flashed him a sympathetic smile. He could hear the girls talking in fast whispers as he walked to the garbage can to pitch his empty cup.
Self-consciously, Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around, hoping to see his grandfather. The other customers had lost interest in the mishap. He didn't care. He couldn't get around the brunette's observation that Riff Logan had split up with his Beautiful Girl fifteen years ago, and maybe her fifteen-year-old son was Riff's son, too.
It wasn't true. Of course it wasn't. That article had it wrong. He wasn't fifteen—yet. And he was Michael Jeffries' son, not Riff Logan's.
Ignoring the girls, Jack walked right by them, determined to find his grandfather in the lobby. He just wanted to get out of here and stop thinking about Riff Logan, his mother, everything. Some vacation this was turning out to be.
Chapter 10
Riff woke to the rich, spicy scent of good Italian cooking. It filled his room, making him realize he couldn't remember when he'd last eaten anything more substantial than gas-station coffee and stale donuts.
Serena'd obviously made use of the kitchen. The idea that she'd cooked a meal for him—at least, he hoped there was food out there waiting for him—prodded him out of bed and into fresh clothes in record time. The sky outside his bedroom window was a quiltwork of clouds done in shades of grey with threads of black. The setting sun gilded the lowest clouds in a brilliance that only made the darkness look more ominous. He watched the gathering storm for a few moments, until his rumbling stomach forced him to follow the siren lure of well-prepared food to the kitchen.
The everyday dishes had been arranged on the table, along with a basket of rolls and a bowl of tossed salad. But that wasn’t what caught his eye. That distinction was reserved for the sight of Serena's fine, heart-shaped ass as she bent over the oven's open door.
"I must have done something right."
"Finn!" Startled by the sound of his voice, Serena straightened abruptly. She bobbled the glass dish in her oven-mitted hands before setting it down on the stovetop.
He sniffed appreciatively. "You cook."
"Of course I cook. It's either that or raise the kids on takeout."
"You didn't have to do all this." The protest was weak.
"Why, were you going to cook?"
He grinned. "If you count slapping sliced meat between two pieces of bread cooking."
"Nice try. How about you make lunch tomorrow?"
"Deal. Sliced meat between pieces of bread it is. Hold on a sec." Riff went into the hall to open what she'd assumed was some kind of utility closet. The well-stocked wine rack was a surprise. Finn examined a few labels before selecting two bottles and putting them on the counter. "Can't have great Italian without wine."
"Whatever you say." Serena left him to it while she served the lasagna and salad. A bit of rummaging produced a corkscrew. Leaving one opened bottle on the counter to "breathe", he brought the other to the table along with a pair of wineglasses from the cupboard beside the sink. Smoothly, he poured out the rich, red liquid.
When Serena sat, Finn raised his glass in a toast. "To you."
"Why me?"
"Why not?" With a grin and another salute, Finn put his glass to his lips.
Still the charmer, Serena thought. Nothing wrong with charm, as long as she recognized it for what it was—as natural to Finn as breathing. Satisfied that she had the man sitting across from her pegged, Serena picked up her fork and began to eat. Finn dug in to the huge square of lasagna on his plate with obvious relish.
By unspoken agreement, they avoided talking about almost everything that alluded to that summer fifteen years ago. Katie and Jack were safe topics; so was Simple Pleasures.
"I've just signed some new artisans I think are really going to take off. I should have some of their work ready to display before the tourist season gets going." Serena absently lifted her wineglass to her lips. Finding it empty, she put it down and nudged her still-full plate aside. Crossing her forearms on the table in front of her, she continued, "If things go as well this summer as I think they will, I'm going to expand Simple Pleasures to make room for an area near the front windows devoted to more traditional art—paintings, sculptures, weaving. The stores on either side of me have agreed to rent out space for storage, so other than my office, I can extend the shop floor right to the back."
Serena started to go into more detail until, looking from Finn's empty plate and salad bowl to her own mostly untouched food, she stopped with a lame, "Well, that was a lot more than you wanted to know, I'm sure."
"No, not at all," Finn said, neatly stacking his bowl and cutlery on top of his dinner plate. "I've always liked hearing about your plans. It's like you've painted a picture in your mind and you're just setting about bringing the brushstrokes to life."
They fell silent, each remembering how Serena used to sit in the circle of his arms and talk about how she would do this, and then this and eventually this to achieve whatever goal she'd set herself.
"Hmm." Serena stared into her wineglass.
"Danny says hi," Finn said abruptly.
She smiled slightly at the blatant effort to shift the conversation. "He did, huh?"
"Yeah." He stood and picked up his dirty dishes, then gestured at hers. "You done?" When she nodded, he scooped them up and carried them to the sink.
"He and his wife are out on his boat right now. Excuse me, ship." Finn grinned. "He'd beat me with his drumsticks if he heard me call it a 'boat.' He goes out on it every chance he gets, which, to hear him tell it, isn't nearly often enough."
Serena's curiosity outweighed her resentment over the reminder of what had come between them—namely, the guys in the band. Finn had chosen them over her. Apparently not as nonchalant as he seemed, his eyes were wary when she left the table to join him by the sink. Pulling on the oven mitts, she opened the oven door to take out the apple crumble. As if they'd been sharing a kitchen for years, Finn took a couple of small plates out of the cupboard and grabbed some forks from the drawer while she served the dessert.
"So Danny's married," she finally commented, adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream to his plate without asking. He'd always loved ice cream.
"Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it? But he and Lori have been together for almost ten years."
"Not so hard to believe, actually. Most people settle down, eventually." Ignoring the sharp look he shot her, Serena carried their plates to the table. With determined brightness, she said, "I hope you're still hungry."
"Always."
His husky tone put her on her guard, despite his innocent expression. "This is great. I can't remember the last time I had apple crumble. At least, good apple crumble. Just one of the things I tend to miss on the road."
"Is it? What else do you miss?"
"I guess the biggest thing is having my own space. Just my couch to kick back on, my coffee table to put my feet on, my kitchen to raid. Knowing that if I put a book down, someone else isn't going to start reading it and dog-ear the pages." He shrugged.
"I can understand that. But don't you get a kick out of playing to different people in different places? You used to get a real buzz from that."
"Yeah," he said slowly. "I did. It's not really the same, now, though. Being on tour means I usually don't have a lot of time for sightseeing. If I'm not traveling, I'm performing or practicing or setting up to perform. So while I may be in a new place, it all looks pretty much the same from inside the band's bus or a strange hotel room."
"That sounds awful!"
Again he shrugged. "Don't get me wrong—I still love what I'm doing, at least the core of it. Like working in the studio. It's intense, but it's energizing, too, creating something new from the first note to the last, working it all out until bang! And then you know you've got it."
Serena smiled at the enthusiasm that lit his face. There was that passion, the love of music that had driven him for as long as she'd known him.
"But I think the best—the absolute best—is hearing something I've created come alive. When I go out on a stage and the fans are cheering and the lights snap on like a lightning bolt, and those first notes charge through the room …" Finn grinned and shook his head. "It's like a shot of adrenaline right to the heart."
Serena winced and pressed a hand to her chest. "Ouch! I saw that in Pulp Fiction."
They both laughed. Finn scooped the last bite of apple crumble out of his bowl and polished it off with a contented groan. Setting the bowl aside, he said, "So Jack's into guitars?"
"Yes. He's been taking lessons for a couple of years now."
Effectively sidetracked by talk of her son, Serena let her suspicions slide. The liqueur-laced coffee that followed the apple crumble didn't hurt either. But the past was like a Hawaiian shirt at a nudist colony—hard to ignore. No matter how much you wanted to look the other way, that obnoxious shirt just kept yanking on your attention.
Night, made blacker by the gathering storm clouds, had fallen by the time they carried their dessert plates to the counter. Serena rinsed while Finn loaded the dishwasher. She was surprised again by how easily they seemed to slip into the domestic dance together. The mundane task was just one of many she'd once hoped to share with him. How maudlin. Serena laughed softly at herself.
Finn closed the door of the dishwasher and looked at her. "What?"
"Nothing. Just … nothing."
The both jerked when a sudden crack of thunder rattled the dishes in the cupboards. Finn put a protective hand on Serena's back and moved closer, until his chest brushed the side of her arm. The lights fl
ickered. As if on cue, a gust of wind sent a barrage of raindrops against the kitchen windows.
"Wow, would you look at that out there." Finn moved the curtain aside on the window above the sink to peer out into the darkness. "I'd forgotten how fast the weather can roll in off the lake."
Serena's reflection was pale beside his in the glossy black glass as she leaned to look out too.
"That looks pretty nasty." A flash of lightning, chased by a thunderous crackle a half-beat later, punctuated her words. "Maybe we should start unplugging things."
"Couldn't hurt. I'll go upstairs and you take the downstairs."
Finn left her side, and she soon heard him taking the stairs two at a time. Mentally berating herself for overreacting—sure, the appliances and electronics were well-grounded, but there were always the weird, X-Files-ish stories out there about people getting zapped when their picture tube blew—Serena pulled the plugs on the small countertop appliances. She wondered if she should try to find the circuit box and throw the breakers for the larger appliances. The lights flickered again, then went out. Another flash of lightning made the room glow in negative, and blinked out just as fast. Using one hand gliding over the smooth surface as a guide, she groped her way to the end of the counter where she'd left her purse. A quick rummage turned up the mini flashlight attached to her keychain. The tiny beam of light was reassuringly bright as she followed it into the living room.
Finn was crouched down in front of the fireplace, arranging kindling on the grate. He'd lit some candles on the mantle. Alerted by her soft footsteps, he said over his shoulder, "It's still early yet, so I thought we could sit in front of the fire for a bit. Unless you'd rather call it a night …?"
"No, a fire'd be great. Do you want me to bring more wood in from the pile before it gets too soaked?"